Carbon sequestration is a technique for long-term storage of carbon dioxide (CO2) to reduce the carbon footprint of hydrocarbon production. The sequestration of CO2 as a way of mitigating the impact of fossil fuel use on global climate change is currently the subject of research.
One way of inhibiting the escape of CO2 into the atmosphere is by mineralization. Mineralization involves reacting gaseous CO2 with materials to form either solids or soluble salts, which may be stored in the Earth's crust. Several groups are investigating underground mineralization associated with injection into deep saline aquifers, and have concluded that the kinetics show that it takes many years to mineralize CO2. While the prospect of mineralization of CO2 underground would solve many problems associated with the release of carbon into the atmosphere, no practical system to accomplish this has been demonstrated. Thus there is a need in the art for a method and apparatus that permits the permanent sequestration of carbon gases.